Former England and Notts County boss Sam Allardyce says Steve Cooper will deserve to be named manager of the season if he keeps Nottingham Forest in the Premier League.
The Reds are fighting hard to remain out of the bottom three and avoid a quick return to the Championship having been promoted at Wembley last term.
Forest are just two points above the drop zone having posted six wins this season, one of which was a memorable 1-0 victory over Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool.
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But former Newcastle manager Allardyce feels Cooper has done a magnificent job of handling a large dressing room after the club signed 30 players this season, making it a difficult job to keep everybody happy.
"If Nottingham Forest survive relegation, Steve Cooper has definitely done the best job of all the managers in the Premier League this season," Allardyce told the William Hill and Footy Accumulators podcast No Tippy Tappy Football.
"What becomes difficult in terms of building team spirit is having too many players. Most managers don’t have enough. What they don’t have enough of is quality, and what they don’t want is quantity.
“It’s counterproductive when you have so many players. Not only because most of the players aren’t going to achieve the heights that you need, but you also have a number of players that aren’t involved in the squad that become antagonists and become your problem. They start speaking to other people about how they aren’t getting treated fairly and that they aren’t getting the right opportunities and not getting picked when they should be.
“Steve is one of the only managers to say he has too many players. Dealing with that can distract your focus. You want to keep them all involved and use them if you can and see what they’ve got, but ultimately it’s a very tough decision. Steve has done an incredible job dealing with these issues as well as getting good results.”
Former Oxford boss Karl Robinson was a guest on the podcast. He added: “Steve Cooper is a very good coach and a very good man manager, and great with young players. The job he has done this year, he is the manager of the year, no doubt. What he has done, bringing in 20-odd players and enabling Forest to compete and overachieve, that as a manager is the hardest thing you can do.
“To bring in all of those players and get them playing well together and managing them on and off the pitch, it’s one of the best jobs anyone has ever done in the Premier League. At least for a very long time.”
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